TALKIN' 'BOUT MY HOMETOWN . . .

Is anybody goin' to Birkenhead? Well here' s a brief reminder

Pacific Road Arts Centre, next Friday night, I'm hopin' it'll be a blinder.

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Friday March 6, 7.30pm - Birkenhead Pacific Road Arts Centre, UK
Pacific Road, Birkenhead, Wirral CH41 1LJ
Box Office: 0151 666 0000 or:
http://www.pacificroad.co.uk/webpages/booking.asp
tickets £10, £8 concessions

5 EXTRA BOB & THE POETRY OF THE BLUES GIGS

I've added the following dates to my BOB DYLAN & THE POETRY OF THE BLUES tour:

Mon Apr 6, 8.30pm Hugh’s Room, Toronto, Canada
2261 Dundas Street West, Toronto, Ontario, Canada
Box Office: 416-531-6604 / www.hughsroom.com/reservation.htm
tickets tba

Sat Apr 25, 8pm One Longfellow Square, Portland ME, US
181 State St. Suite 201,
Portland, Maine 04101, USA
Box Office: 207-239-1855 / www.onelongfellowsquare.com
tickets $18 in advance, $20 at the door

Sun May 10, 7.30pm The Quay Theatre, Suffolk, UK
Quay Lane, Sudbury, Suffolk CO10 2AN, UK
Box Office: 01787 374745
tickets £12 (Quay Friends £11)

Wed May 20, 7pm High Noon Saloon, Madison WI, US
701A E. Washington Avenue (or Hwy 151),
Madison Wisconsin 53703-2958
Box Office: 608-268-1122 / www.high-noon.com /
or locally thru B-Side Records, Mad City Music, Strictly Discs
tickets $15 in advance, $18 at the door

Thur May 21, 6pm Hibbing Public Library, Hibbing MN, US
2020 E. 5th Avenue, Hibbing, MN 55746
admission free but numbers limited
(this event is my contribution, and the Library's, to DYLAN DAYS 2009).

US HARDBACK OF "TRAVELIN' SHOES"

I'm pleased to report that a North American edition of Hand Me My Travelin' Shoes: In Search of Blind Willie McTell is to be published in hardback on September 1st, from Chicago Review Press / A Cappella. The cover design for this edition is shown here. The ISBN is 9781556529757. The price will be US$26.95.

I am able to update the text right up till the end of next month, so any comments on aspects of the text will be especially welcome between now and mid-March.

SO ABOUT THIS NEW ALBUM THEN . . .

One of the comment-posters to this blog was jumping up and down last week demanding, partially in capital letters, that I just come out with it and REVEAL ALL about the album. I had thought I'd made it plain enough that there was nothing else I knew or could say. That remains how it is. So let me re-direct here those trying to grab my lapels and shake it out of me. Enough is enough. Sooner or later one of us must know. We'll just have to see how it goes.

And the cover photo above is not really real.

MELANIE & BOB LIVE 2009

No, not together.

I've just been e-mailed a press release only slightly less boring than most, telling me this:

"Legendary singer/ songwriter Melanie begins a three night residency at London's Jazz Cafe on Friday 29th May 2009. In these rare intimate UK performances she will be accompanied, on guitar, by her virtuoso son, Beau Jarred Schekeryk. The first night's performance will feature the albums Born To Be & Candles In The Rain in their entirety. Born To Be was Melanie's debut album, released on Buddha Records in 1968, and features notable self penned tracks 'In the Hour', 'I'm Back In Town' & 'I Really Loved Harold' as well as her version of Bob Dylan's 'Mr Tambourine Man'. "

The night after, she'll sing two more albums, and so on, ending with a night where she sings whatever people most request by visiting her website. I shan't be turning up to hear Melanie, but it was impressive when Brian Wilson started touring around reconstructing entire albums - and in turn makes me think how interesting it would be for Dylan to do the same once in a while.

We've spent so many years saying how marvellously different from his records he always is in live performance (while only ever whispering in private that 95 times out of 100 the recorded version proves far better) - but either way, wouldn't it be weirdly thrilling to go to a Dylan concert that began with acoustic guitars leading into 'Tangled Up In Blue', and finished with 'Buckets of Rain', or began with a large group of musicians on the stage erupting into 'Changing Of The Guards' and ending with 'Where Are You Tonight (Journey Thru Dark Heat)?'

Of course Dylan has said that he'd like to re-record his old albums - I've even read speculation that the new album due out any day now might be one of these (though it's an idea I discount). If he did re-record the old masterpieces, he'd be more capable of replicating the new versions live than the old... which would make for an even stranger format for a concert tour.

Better than the current exhausted format, though - which maybe even Dylan is tiring of. There are persistent rumours that when he adds a second London date, supposedly at a much more intimate venue than the 02 Arena (which wouldn't be difficult), he will preview some of that elusive new album live.

COLCHESTER AND LIMERICK: A REMINDER

Just a reminder that the first two dates on my BOB DYLAN & THE POETRY OF THE BLUES tour are NEXT WEEK:

Thu Feb 19, 8pm - Colchester Arts Centre, UK
Church St., Colchester, Essex
Box Office: 01206 500900 / www.wegottickets.co.uk/event/41101
tickets £10, £8 concessions

Fri Feb 20, 8pm - Belltable Arts Centre, Limerick, Ireland
temporarily at 36 Cecil Street, Limerick, Eire
Box Office: ticketline 061 319 866 or:
boxoffice@belltable.ie
tickets €15, €12 concessions

and to say that the day after Belltable, ie Saturday Feb 21st, 10am till noon, I'm giving a workshop on Non-Fiction Writing for the Limerick Writers Circle; there may be one or two places left for non-members for this; further details from Dominic Taylor on 087 299 6409.

THIRD EXTRA DATE ADDED: HOLMFIRTH

This will not be the last date to be added, but it will be the last date of my tour:

BOB DYLAN & THE POETRY OF THE BLUES

Sat June 6, 8pm

Holmfirth Arts Festival, Holmfirth, UK
Holmfirth Church, Holmfirth, West Yorkshire

Box Office: 01484 682644 / info@holmfirthartsfestival.co.uk

tickets £10.

It's a town I know. For many years the woman who had first introduced me to Bob Dylan's work lived in Holmfirth, in an unbelievably cold ex-chapel up on a hill, with her wood-sculptor bloke. So I'm happy to find that my last date will be there in Last Of The Summer Wine country.

BUDDY